Free will? I dont think so

[Latin]

Well, He is a motivating cause in our choices, but doesn’t override our free will. He gives Grace.

First, we don’t have libertarian free will, God has given us aided free will, which is His creation.

Our aided free will is His creation and part of His gift of graces.
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We FREELY will what God wills us to will, and we FREELY do what God wills and causes us to do.
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We are God’s creation, our aided free wills also God’s creation.

So, why would He override our aided free will which is His creation and His gift of grace, infused into us?

I don’t see why He couldn’t know “beforehand”, in human terms, and plan accordingly.

God DID NOT create this world according to the whims of our nonexistent libertarian free wills.
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Eph.1:11; (God) … accomplishes all things according to the counsel of His will.
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God Designed, Decreed, Preordained and He causes every event in our Universe includes every our salutary act and the act of our sins for our benefit – CCC 311, CCC 314, etc.

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As God has no plan B, this means:
Every event/ act in the Universe, includes in our world, happened, happening and will happen according to God’s Designed, Decreed, Foreordained Plan A.
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According to plan A, from all eternity every event/ act Designed, Decreed, Preordained and caused by God, includes Satan’s rebellion, Adam’s and Eve’s “fall,” etc.

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The Mystery of Predestination by John Salza (He is a Catholic apologist.)
Page 113; God, however, willed to permit Adam to reject His grace and to sin.” – Reason described in CCC 310; 314; etc.

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The same is true for events in our lives:

“For Augustine says (De Civ. Dei v, 1) that the "Divine will or power is called fate. "
But the Divine will or power is not in creatures, but in God. Therefore fate is not in creatures but in God.

The Divine will is cause of all things that happen, as Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 1 seqq.). Therefore all things are subject to fate.

Relative to us they often appear to be by chance.
But relative to God, who directs everything according to his divine plan, nothing occurs by chance.

Hence if this divine influence stopped, every operation would stop.
Every operation, therefore, of anything is traced back to Him as its cause.” (Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III.)
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God bless

 

[Vico]

…
No, time is real. And we are really within it. The illusion , as it were, is the mistaken notion that God is under time . He isn’t.
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Illusion (noun): a thing that is or is likely to be wrongly perceived or interpreted by the senses.

 

[whatistrue]

I am saying you only have one choice.

Only ever having one choice would be forcing. But you always have all the choices that can exist in each situation, whether it is one, two, or a million. It is your choice, unforced and free. And God or anything else knowing what it is makes no difference to that. Don’t think of it as God knowing “ahead of time”, think of it as God knowing “outside of time”. He only knows it when we make it, but that “when” to Him is the same as all the other “whens” in our universe. Very slippery concept and I confess that I cannot imagine what it feels or looks like, but that is understandable because I am subject to time where God isn’t.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

I am saying you only have one choice.

Only ever having one choice would be forcing. But you always have all the choices that can exist in each situation, whether it is one, two, or a million. It is your choice, unforced and free. And God or anything else knowing what it is makes no difference to that.

So if you have a million choices and God knows you pick the third one, can you pick the 5th one?

 

[Latin]

He only knows it when we make it, …

He knows it from all eternity, because HE CREATED our aided free wills from all eternity.

We know it and we will it at the point when He infuse His gift of aided free will into us as, which is His gift of grace.

God bless

 

[phil3]

So the answer is “yes” from conception that soul will either go to heaven or to hell.

 

[whatistrue]

So if you have a million choices and God knows you pick the third one, can you pick the 5th one?

Yes. Then God would know you picked the fifth one instead. Your point?

 

[whatistrue]

He knows it from all eternity, because HE CREATED IT from all eternity.

So you are arguing against free will. Fair enough.

 

[MarkRome]

God foreknowing our free choices doesn’t make those choices any less free. Our choices aren’t deterministic, or even probabilistic. They are free, otherwise we wouldn’t be accountable for sin. The problem is that our finite minds can’t grasp eternity, being outside of time, or omniscience. To deny free will ultimately is to deny essential attributes of God.

 

[Latin]

God foreknowing our free choices doesn’t make those choices any less free. Our choices aren’t deterministic, or even probabilistic. They are free, otherwise we wouldn’t be accountable for sin. The problem is that our finite minds can’t grasp eternity, being outside of time, or omniscience. To deny free will ultimately is to deny essential attributes of God.

Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ludwig Ott;

For every salutary act internal supernatural grace of God (gratia elevans) is absolutely necessary, (De fide).

There is a supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul, which precedes the free act of the will, (De fide).
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The Divine will is cause of all things that happen, as Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 1 seqq.)
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Aquinas said, "God changes the will without forcing it . But he can change the will from the fact that he himself operates in the will as he does in nature,” De Veritatis 22:9. 31. ST I-II:112:3. 32. Gaudium et Spes 22; "being …

As God Himself operates in our wills, we don’t even have to know that we are FREELY cooperating with His will. – CCC 307, CCC 308, etc.
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Nothing that is outside of God’s creating, sustaining, and governing will.
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We FREELY will what God wills us to will, and we FREELY do what God wills and causes us to do.

God Designed and cast into stone every our acts FROM ALL ETERNITY.
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God bless

 

[MarkRome]

Yes. Nothing written there contradicts what I said.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

So if you have a million choices and God knows you pick the third one, can you pick the 5th one?

Yes. Then God would know you picked the fifth one instead. Your point?

Good grief, this is harder than I thought…

He already knows what you are going to pick tomorrow. If He decided to prove to me that He exists, He could come to me in a vision and tell me today what you are going to pick tomorrow. A one in a million chance would be pretty convincing. I mean, God is omniscient, so He obviously knows and He says you’ll pick number three.

Here we go, I think. This will prove to me that God actually exists. And then what happens? You pick 5?

So what conclusions can I make from this. The first is that God doesn’t exist. Or second that is that He does but He’s not omniscient.

I guess you would reject both options. So the only one remaining is that you couldn’t pick 5 and He was right.

 

[whatistrue]

He already knows what you are going to pick tomorrow .

This is the sticking point in my mind. Your phrasing indicates that you are still thinking of “before” and “after” with respect to God’s knowledge. Those concepts simply don’t apply to God. Every moment in the universe, from its long ago beginning to its eventual end, whatever form that may take, is “now” to God. But it is most decidedly not to us.

So my playing around with the 3d and 5th bit was to show that my choice is free up until the moment I make it, at which point God knows and always knew what it is. I don’t say that God knows today what my choice will be tomorrow, I say that when I make my choice tomorrow, God will have always known it. Very slippery, very counterintuitive.

And this is not the way to prove that God exists. In fact, I am not aware of any absolute proof of that. Evidence, yes. Reason, yes. Absolute proof in a scientific sense? No.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

He already knows what you are going to pick tomorrow .

This is the sticking point in my mind. Your phrasing indicates that you are still thinking of “before” and “after” with respect to God’s knowledge. Those concepts simply don’t apply to God.

Exactly. And I’m not referring to those concepts as they apply to God. I am talking about them as they relate to us.

He always knows what you will pick in your tomorrow. It’s in his eternal now. He could tell me what that choice was in my today. When it gets to your tomorrow it’s still his eternal now. So nothing has changed for Him.

So concentrate on that. Nothing has changed for Him.

 

[chercheur]

It is not determined at that point though.

God is not at that “before” point when he knows, because God is not at any point in time. And his knowledge is still based on the choice(s) being made.

 

[whatistrue]

He could tell me what that choice was in my today.

At which point wouldn’t you have been given the “proof” you were speaking of? Regardless of whether it panned out? If God spoke to me directly, well I can’t say as I could ever entertain any doubt ever again.

Nothing has changed for Him.

Nothing can change God. But that does not take away our free will. Knowledge of the choice by God does not mean that there is no choice for us. I am not going to jump out of the window in my office. Does that mean that I cannot choose to jump out of the window in my office?

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

He could tell me what that choice was in my today.

At which point wouldn’t you have been given the “proof” you were speaking of? Regardless of whether it panned out? If God spoke to me directly, well I can’t say as I could ever entertain any doubt ever again.

Nothing has changed for Him.

Nothing can change God. But that does not take away our free will. Knowledge of the choice by God does not mean that there is no choice for us. I am not going to jump out of the window in my office. Does that mean that I cannot choose to jump out of the window in my office?

I’ve had my say. I can’t make it clearer. But I appreciate there are significantly different views on this subject and I appreciate your replies.

 

[whatistrue]

I can’t make it clearer.

No you can’t; you were very clear and I understand your position. I just think it is incorrect.

 

[Latin]

MarkRome:
God foreknowing our free choices doesn’t make those choices any less free. Our choices aren’t deterministic, or even probabilistic. They are free, otherwise we wouldn’t be accountable for sin. The problem is that our finite minds can’t grasp eternity, being outside of time, or omniscience.
[/quote]

Yes. Nothing written there contradicts what I said.

The contradiction is:
Above MarkRome: you described Libertarian free will and I in Post No. 90 described Aided free will. – Only God has Libertarian free will, and He has given us Aided free will.

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The two are NOT THE SAME.
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There are two kinds of free will, Libertarian free will and Aided free will.

LIBERTARIAN FREE WILL
Libertarian free will is basically the concept that, metaphysically and morally, man is an autonomous being, one who operates independently, not controlled by others or by outside forces.
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AIDED FREE WILL
Aquinas said, "God changes the will without forcing it. But he can change the will from the fact that he himself operates in the will as he does in nature,” De Veritatis 22:9. 31. ST I-II:112:3. 32. Gaudium et Spes 22; "being …

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The Father William Most Collection
St. Augustine on Grace and Predestination

I.(1) On human interaction with grace: Every good work, even good will, is the work of God.
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De gratia Christi 25, 26: “For not only has God given us our ability and helps it, but He even works [brings about] willing and acting in us; not that we do not will or that we do not act, but that without His help we neither will anything good nor do it”
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De gratia et libero arbitrio 16, 32: “It is certain that we will when we will; but He brings it about that we will good … . It is certain that we act when we act, but He brings it about that we act , providing most effective powers to the will.”
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St. Augustine is called, rightly, the Doctor of Grace, for his great work. Augustine showed very well our total dependence on God.

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We don’t have libertarian free will, God has given us aided free will.

We FREELY will what God wills us to will, and we FREELY do what God wills and causes us to do.
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God bless

 

[whatistrue]

We don’t have libertarian free will, God has given us aided free will.

We FREELY will what God wills us to will, and we FREELY do what God wills and causes us to do.

You cannot be free if your choices are determined by another, even if that other is God. Knowledge is not determining.